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October 14, 2008

Endangered Chimp Population Drastically Declining

by Sam Savage

In a population survey of West African chimpanzees living in CÃ´te d'Ivoire, researchers estimate that this endangered subspecies has dropped in numbers by a whopping 90 percent since the last survey was conducted 18 years ago. The few remaining chimpanzees are now highly fragmented, with only one viable population living in TaÃÂ¯ National Park, according to a report in the October 14th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

This alarming decline in a country that had been considered one of the final strongholds for West African chimps suggests that their status should be raised to critically endangered, said Genevive Campbell of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The booming human population in CÃ´te d'Ivoire is probably responsible for the chimpanzees' demise.

"The human population in Cote d'Ivoire has increased nearly 50 percent over the last 18 years," said Christophe Boesch, also of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "Since most threats to chimpanzee populations are derived from human activities such as hunting and deforestation, this has contributed to the dramatic decline in chimpanzee populations. Furthermore, the situation has deteriorated even more with the start of the civil war in 2002, since all surveillance ceased in the protected areas."

In the 1960s, the population of chimpanzees in CÃ´te d'Ivoire was estimated at about 100,000 individuals. At the end of the 1980s, when the first and last nationwide chimpanzee survey was carried out, the total population of chimpanzees was estimated at 8,000 to 12,000 individuals. While that already represented a drastic decrease from the expected numbers, it nonetheless meant that CÃ´te d'Ivoire harbored about half of the world's remaining West African chimpanzee populations.

The only remaining refuge for the dwindling West African chimpanzees is TaÃÂ¯ National Park. However, this population is also extremely threatened by poaching activities, Boesch said. External financial support in that park is scheduled to end in 2010, a move that will probably have disastrous consequences for the last vestiges of chimpanzees in CÃ´te d'Ivoire.

"The comparisons between the results within national parks in CÃ´te d'Ivoire and compared with the classified forest sends a very clear message: populations of wild chimpanzees living in protected areas with constant funding for conservation activities can survive even during period of rapid increase in human populations and political unrest," Boesch said. "We must appeal to the international conservation community to invest in sustainable funding of conservation activities in national parks with known importance for chimpanzee populations. Our results show that this works."